The Mysterious Shadow
by lordessoftherings
Summary: Takes place after the SECOND SEASON. This is an alternate version of season 3 that takes place 6 months after the group defeats Prospero, the evil magician. Let me know what you guys think, and I'll try make sure I update regularly!
1. Chapter 1

**This takes place after the SECOND season.**

* * *

Jacob Stone, Ezekiel Jones, Cassandra Killian, Eve Baird, and Flynn Carsen walked through the Backdoor and into a small town in Maine, where it just so happened to be raining.

"Well, this is great." Ezekiel said, water soaking into his clothes. "Are you sure we're in the right place?"

The street they had stepped out onto was clearly empty, with a few cars parked up and down the street.

"Yes, I recognize the pictures from the Clipping's Book." Flynn said, pulling out his pocket watch to check the time. "I am ninety-nine point eighty percent sure that we are in the correct place." He put his watch back into his pocket.

"Come on, let's go inside someplace." Jacob said, motioning for them to follow him. The group walked down the street, before stopping at a bar that had an OPEN sign on.

"Wait, we can't just appear here, then go into a bar like we've lived here our whole lives!" Eve said, stopping outside. Nobody listened, and the rest of them walked inside. Eve sighed, but followed them anyways.

The bar was fairly empty, with a few men sitting at stools, talking to the barman, and a few other people sitting around at tables. A couple of people glanced over at the new group who had just walked in, but most of the people ignored them.

"So, why exactly are we here?" Cassandra asked. "I didn't get a chance to look at the Clipping's Book before we left."

"The Clipping's Book showed us all sorts of mysterious things happening here." Eve said. "Animals disappearing, people going crazy and disappearing..."

"So, what you're saying is, it could be aliens?" Ezekiel asked.

"It's not aliens." Eve said.

"Whoever they are, Jenkins said there was magic at work here." Flynn said.

"Which is why we're here. To stop the magic." Eve finished.

Jacob, Ezekiel, and Cassandra all looked at each other.

"What?" Eve asked.

"You two are doing that thing again." Ezekiel said.

"What thing?" Flynn asked.

"You know, that thing." Cassandra said.

Flynn and Eve just stared at her.

"You two are finishing each other's sentences again." Jacob said.

"No we aren't." Flynn and Eve said at the exact same time. They looked at each other.

"Okay, so maybe we are." Eve said, looking away from Flynn and back to the other three. "That doesn't matter. We're here on business."

"Speaking of which, I think I'm going to go order us a few drinks." Jacob said, standing up. "I'll be right back."

"So, anyways, do we know what, or who, is the focus of this magic?" Cassandra asked.

"Nope." Flynn said. "But knowing our luck, I'm sure we'll find out soon enough."

"So, what should we be looking for?" Ezekiel asked, leaning backwards. "Crop circles? UFOs? Shooting stars?"

"We need to talk with the locals. Ask them what they think about all of the stuff that's been happening." Eve said, ignoring Ezekiel. "Which means we should split up and talk to everybody here."

"Great idea." Flynn said. "I think Eve and I should -"

"Uh uh, no." Eve said, interrupting him. "We are all going to split up and talk to people here on our own."

"But -" Flynn started.

"No buts." Eve stated. "This is faster, and less distracting."

"So, what's our plan?" Jacob asked, walking back up to the booth with drinks.

"We're splitting up to cover more ground." Eve explained.

"Okay. I think the bartender said something about having rooms for rent upstairs." Jacob said.

"Okay then. Ezekiel, you can go check out upstairs, while the rest of us take care of down here." Eve instructed.

They all got up from their booth, leaving the drinks behind.

* * *

Upstairs, a mystery someone hid in the shadows as Ezekiel walked down the dark corridor, testing every door.

"Why did I get this job?" Ezekiel said to himself, as he twisted another door handle. Locked. "I mean, it's not hard or anything" Ezekiel tried another door. Locked. "But, I feel like the group is giving me the easy jobs because they think I'll screw up." Ezekiel tried another door. This door handle twisted, and the door opened. Ezekiel pushed the door open more, and saw a dark room. "This is the part where aliens abduct me." Ezekiel said, not moving.

Someone snickered from inside the room.

Ezekiel backed away from the door. "Okay Ezekiel, you can do this. There's nothing weird about a creepy giggle coming from a dark room at all." He said to himself. Ezekiel took a cautious step forward into the room, and turned on the light.

The room was pretty nicely furnished. There was a bed with black sheets, the walls were a dark green, there was a bedside table next to the bed, a huge dresser, and a door, probably leading to the bathroom.

But that wasn't all.

On the bed, sitting up straight, there was a doll. It was porcelain, and was wearing a black and red ballgown. The doll had white blonde hair, green eyes, and red lips.

Ezekiel stared at the doll. "You are the most creepy thing I have ever seen."

The doll turned and looked at him. "Well, you're no beauty yourself."

Ezekiel's eyes widened, and he backed up quickly, but tripped over his feet, and fell into the hallway.

The doll stood up and hopped off of the bed, and started walking towards Ezekiel. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." The doll said, getting closer.

Ezekiel quickly stood up and sprinted down the hallway, and back downstairs. "Colonel Baird!" He shouted.

Downstairs, Eve looked up from the man she was talking to, and watched as Ezekiel sprinted down the stairs, tripped over the rug, and fell into a table, knocking the glasses off of it, which broke when they hit the ground, spilling beer all over the floor. Unphased, Ezekiel stood up and ran over to where Eve and the others were now staring at him from.

"We'll pay for those!" Flynn called over to the bartender, who looked very annoyed and angry about his smashed mugs.

"Jones, what are you doing?" Eve asked angrily.

"You've gotta get upstairs. There's a creepy doll up there that's talking to me and walking around." Ezekiel said.

Flynn, Eve, Jacob and Cassandra all looked at each other, then back at Ezekiel. "Did you hit your head too hard when you hit the table?"

Ezekiel shook his head. "No, my head is fine, but I swear, there is a walking talking doll up there, that I am pretty sure is trying to kill me."

"Ezekiel, you're not making any sense." Cassandra said, confused.

"Follow me." Ezekiel said, grabbing Cassandra's arm and pulling her upstairs. The others followed them.

"There, in that room, is a possessed doll." Ezekiel pointed to the open door on the right.

The others looked at each other again, but walked down the hallway, with Eve in front, and Ezekiel in the very back behind everyone.

As they walked down the hall, the door to the room slammed shut.

Everyone froze. Eve pulled out her gun, and continued moving forward. She motioned for the others to follow her silently.

As Eve reached the door, she carefully reached out for the door handle. Placing her hand on it, she said quietly "On three. One, two three!"

On three, Eve opened the door and quickly walked into the room followed behind by the others.

The room was the exact same way it had before, but this time, there was no doll.

"Well, where'd it go?" Ezekiel asked, stepping into the room finally.

"Are you sure there was a doll in here?" Flynn asked, looking around the room.

"Yes, I am sure. There really was a walking, talking doll." Ezekiel stated. "Look around the room. I bet the little bloke is hiding."

The Librarians searched the room, but no doll was found anywhere.

"Yeah, there's nothing in here." Jacob said, standing up from where he had been looking under the bed.

"Then, what made the door slam shut?" Ezekiel asked.

"Probably the open window?" Cassandra said, gesturing towards the wide oped window behind her.

"I'm telling you guys, there was a doll in here." Ezekiel said.

"Well, in other not so crazy news, I talked to some of the people about the weird things going on." Flynn said. "Apparently, and this wasn't mentioned in the news, two people mysteriously died this week."

"What?" Eve said. Everybody turned their attention away from Ezekiel.

"Yeah. And, the police have no clues as to what could've killed them, as they had weird teeth and claw marks on their body." Flynn said.

"Well, something is definitely going on here, and we need to figure out what it is." Eve said, thinking. Everyone turned around and started to walk away from the room.

"But what about the doll?" Ezekiel asked, not moving.

"You must've just imagined it." Cassandra said. "Don't worry, this job can often cause hallucinations." She said cheerfully.

Ezekiel looked around the room. "Ezekiel Jones doesn't hallucinate." He said.

"Well, today you did." Cassandra said, taking Ezekiel's arm and pulling him away from the room.


	2. Chapter 2

The Librarians decided it might be easier if they spent the night in the small town, so they rented some rooms and slept. Ezekiel couldn't sleep though. He could only wonder what had happened to the doll. At least he didn't have to go back to that room. Eve had said that the next day they would search elsewhere in the town, which Ezekiel was thankful for. Sometime in the night, amidst all of his thinking, he fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

The next morning, the Librarians walked around the town. It wasn't raining anymore, but the sky was still dark, like it would start raining any second.

"So, where exactly are we going?" Ezekiel asked as they walked.

"Well, we could check the town archives." Jacob said. "See if anything like this has ever happened."

"Like a curse." Flynn said. "Yes, that would be a good idea."

"We should also talk to the police about the mysterious deaths." Eve said. "Why would they hide that information from the public?"

"So, we should split up again." Cassandra said.

"I'm not going anywhere else in this town by myself." Ezekiel stated.

Eve rolled her eyes. "Stone, take Ezekiel with you to the library. Cassandra, Flynn and I will talk to the police. We'll meet back up at the library."

Jacob nodded. "Come on, you big baby." He said, gesturing for Ezekiel to follow him.

"I am **no** **t** a baby." Ezekiel argued, following Jacob.

Eve sighed as the two walked off towards the library, arguing with each other. "Let's go, and hope they don't get into a fight."

* * *

Eve, Flynn, and Cassandra walked into the police station. It was pretty empty. The only person in there was an officer eating a donut, reading the newspaper.

"Excuse me, Officer." Eve said.

The Officer looked up at her from his reading. "Yes?" He asked.

"We would like to talk to you about the recent deaths you've had here?"

"How do you know about that?" The Officer asked, standing up.

"We're the Librarians." Eve stated.

"Oh, from the Aroostook Monumental Library?" The Officer asked.

"Yes." Flynn said. "I'm Flynn, and these are my associates, Eve and Cassandra."

"Well, it's nice to meet you all. I'm John." John shook each of the Librarians hands. "I wasn't expecting you guys to get here so quickly."

Flynn quickly glanced at Eve and Cassandra, who just shrugged her shoulders. Turning back to Officer John, Flynn said "Well, you know, we wanted to get here as soon as possible."

"Yeah, well, I'm glad you guys did, because we have no idea what happened to these poor folks." John said. "Follow me." He started walking towards the back of the building.

"Wait, I thought you said it was a wild animal attack." Cassandra said as they followed.

John looked back at them. "Did you guys read the papers we sent to you?"

The Librarians shook their heads.

John stopped to unlock a door. "Well, I don't blame you. Beatrice really does know how to type up a boring paper." The lock clicked, and John pushed the door open. "Anyways, that's only what we told the locals to keep panic from spreading. In all actuality, we have no idea what the hell happened to these people." John continued, walking into the room.

The Librarians followed. The room they had entered was clearly the town morgue.

John led them over to two tables with bodies on them, covered mostly by sheets.

"Oh god." Cassandra said, turning away. "I think I'm gonna wait back there." She said. Before Eve or Flynn could protest, Cassandra ran out of the morgue full speed.

"Queasy?" John asked, watching Cassandra run away.

"Yeah, a little bit." Eve said, turning back to John.

"So, what do we have here?" Flynn asked, changing the subject.

"Well, these are the bodies of the two victims." John said. "Go ahead and have a look."

Eve grabbed two pairs of gloves from the table. She handed one pair to Flynn, then put the other pair on herself. She carefully lifted up the sheet on one victim.

The victim looked awful. Their body looked like it had been cut into pieces, then badly stitched up with thread, glass, and blood. It was disgusting.

Eve quickly dropped the sheet, and checked the other body. It wasn't much better than the first body. The only real difference was that this body belonged to a young woman, while the previous body belonged to an old man.

"What the hell happened to these people?" Eve asked, taking her gloves off. Flynn now looked at the bodies.

John shrugged. "That's what we were hoping for you to figure out."

Flynn dropped the sheet on the second body. "Well, you can be rest assured, that we will figure this out." He said. "May I have a moment alone with my colleague?"

John nodded, and left the morgue.

Eve watched John leave, then turned to Flynn. "What is going on here?" She asked.

"Magic. This is a clear sign of magic." Flynn said, looking at the old man. "Crummy, and very badly practiced magic, but still magic."

"What does that mean?"

"Well Eve, this is what happens to someone when certain spells are performed, but backfire, or screw up." Flynn said.

"So, what spells could've blown apart a person?" Eve asked.

"A lot of spells could do this to a person, especially if the spell caster doesn't quite know what they're doing, or if the spell caster doesn't really care about what happens in the end. But to cast one of those spells, let alone two, it would take either a very powerful magician, or, a powerful focus." Flynn said.

"So, it's probably a magician?" Eve asked.

"Maybe." Flynn said, thinking. "But I can't think of any magicians around nowadays that's powerful enough to do this. Prospero would've been powerful enough, but, -"

"He's gone." Eve said. Flynn nodded. "We need to talk to Jenkins." Eve said. Flynn nodded in agreement. They walked out of the morgue to where Cassandra was waiting with John.

"Are we leaving so soon?" Cassandra asked.

Yeah, well, we should probably get back to the Library, and talk this over with the others." Eve said to Cassandra. Turning to John, she said "Thank you for showing us around, Officer John."

John nodded. "Thank you guys for coming."

The three Librarians left the police station, hurrying back to the Library, to share with everyone else about what they had found.


End file.
